主题：【原创】货币之锚(一) -- 本嘉明

First of all, if the value of currency is anchored by something like commodity, then the central bank will have to give up the power to control the amount of currency because that's driven by the "reserve" of such commodities. BUT, if the economy happens to grow faster than the growth of commodities available, we would face serious problems like what happened in history in the gold standard. The anchor won't work no matter what the underlying is because there's no "absolute value". Dont' fall into the trap of Richardo, who devote his life to find the measure of the absolute value.

However, there's a way out. Everything is determined by supply and demand, including currency. That's why we use interest rate to control currency. I strongly suggest people who are interested in this issue to read a book called international trade theory by Jacob Viner. That will clear most of the issues here.

Lastly, I want to add a story in the gold standard era. We often hear that gold is not the wealth of the nation and therefore, those which accumulate gold by promoting export and restricting import are silly. This statement has been repeated a lot in Wealth of Nation by Adam Smith. However, he ignores one important observation. During that time, any currency is derived from gold through mint department. 17th century happens to the golden time of the world economy expansion. Credit(or available currency) at that time determines the growth of the local economy. If a country lacks gold therefore the causing tight currency, the economy will be stalled. Now, people don't need gold to create money and enjoy accusing people at that time to accumulate gold. This is funny.